Take Care
by loveleee
Summary: I know how she kisses when she's sleepy, or hungry, or angry. I know the feel of her warm body curled against mine beneath the sheets, and the panicky, strangled noises she makes when she's caught in a nightmare. And I know that she would never leave a loved one behind, even if she can't admit she loves him. Peeta's POV of Gale's whipping & aftermath, for the Everlark SS exchange.


**Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games. There is dialogue taken from "Catching Fire" in here so that it would blend with canon.**

* * *

_Run away from the district with me._

My heart stutters, then starts again, fluttering rapidly in my chest. _Yes_, I ache to tell her. Nevermind the dangers. Getting caught, starving, freezing – for a split second, they mean nothing to me.

But she doesn't mean just us. Her mother, her sister, Haymitch, even Gale – they're all along for the ride. That's fine. I wouldn't expect anything else from Katniss, not really. But as soon as she says it I know she'll never go. I tell her so.

She pulls away from me, a deep frown creasing her forehead. "Then you don't know me," she says. "Be ready. It could be any time." She sets off toward the town square at a faster pace than I can keep with my new leg in the snow, and I follow, always a step or two behind.

The thing is, she's wrong. I _do _know Katniss Everdeen. I know that she'll tell anyone who asks that her favorite food is the Capitol's lamb stew, but given the choice, she'll stuff herself with the cheese buns we make at the bakery every time. I know the face she makes, the narrowed eyes and wrinkled nose, when Haymitch says something stupid or offensive. I know she loves sunsets, hates cats, and still feels guilt over the boy she killed in the arena.

I know how she kisses when she's sleepy, or hungry, or angry. I know the feel of her warm body curled against mine beneath the sheets, and the panicky, strangled noises she makes when she's caught in a nightmare. And I know that she would never leave a loved one behind, even if she can't admit she loves him.

That's another thing I know: that Katniss loves Gale.

Eventually she slows, lets me catch up. "I really will go, if you want me to," I say quietly. "I just think we better talk it through with Haymitch. Make sure we won't be making things worse for everyone –"

And that's when I hear it. "What's that?"

Katniss looks confused, and I strain to hear better. There it is again:

A whistle.

A crack.

A whip.

Someone's being whipped in the square.

This hasn't happened in years – not in my lifetime, at least. Something unusual is going on. "Come on." I grab her hand, and we walk quickly, sliding on the patches of ground where the snow has been tread down into slippery, hard ice.

The crowd's too thick to see what's going on, and as I scan our surroundings for a place to climb up for a view, there's that sound again. A sickening thud, almost more like a snap; the sound of leather hitting skin. I've heard it before. Twice, in fact.

There's a crate against the side of the sweetshop, waist-high, and I pull Katniss after me, only letting go to hoist myself up. I reach down to help her up, my eyes searching the square, and –

Oh, god. It's _Gale_.

Gale is slumped forward on the ground, his arms twisted back uncomfortably, bound by the wrists to a tall wooden post. A turkey dangles over his head, tauntingly, driven to the post by a nail through the neck. His back –

I can't look at it for longer than a second, can't do anything but let my eyes skim over it on their way to something else. I've never seen this much blood in my life.

_He might actually die_, I think, and feel the sharp acid bite of bile in my throat.

Katniss can't see this. She'll try to stop it – she'll get hurt. Just as her knee finds the edge of the crate, I move in front of her, forcing her back down. "Get down. Get out of here!" I whisper harshly. Vaguely I recognize that my grip is probably crushing her hand, but I'm shaking, and I'm not sure what will happen if I let go.

"What?" She whips her head around wildly in confusion, and tries to climb up on the crate again. I block her, shaking my head.

"Go home, Katniss! I'll be there in a minute, I swear."

But she pulls away from me. She runs.

I scramble to my feet, scanning the crowd desperately for her, but it's no use. She's too short, the bodies packed too tight.

The man with the whip pulls his arm back again, and I realize with a start that it's not Cray, the weathered old man who is District 12's Head Peacekeeper. This man is taller, and younger. He looks stronger. He looks crueler.

I close my eyes as the whip comes down again. Gale's back is completely destroyed, he's clearly unconscious, and he's rapidly losing blood – why are they still doing this? What are they trying to accomplish?

The answer comes to me instantly, as though part of me had known it all along. This is a warning…for _Katniss_.

And it won't end until they're sure she's seen it.

I jump down from the crate, immediately regretting it as pain shoots up my bad leg from the impact. This prosthetic isn't meant to be used athletically – it doesn't fit my knee correctly for that kind of movement.

"_No!_" someone screams from the center of the gathering, and I recognize Katniss's voice. I panic, limping towards the edge of the crowd as quickly as I can. I have to reach her. She's in danger, more than she likely knows.

Just as I'm about to shove someone aside and barrel my way through, a hand clamps around my forearm. I jerk around, ready to throw a punch at whoever's trying to hold me back, but I stop immediately when I see that it's Haymitch. "Let me handle this, boy," he says through clenched teeth.

I watch, silent and dumb, as he charges into the mass of bodies. After a moment, I come to my senses and follow after him. He knocks one woman to the ground and doesn't even acknowledge her, so I bend down and help pull her to her feet. "Sorry," I say distractedly.

By the time I finally make it to the clearing, Haymitch is already there, arguing with the new Head Peacekeeper. He's got Katniss' arm locked in his grip, and I can't see her face, but it's obvious they're arguing about her.

"The first call I make when I get home is to the Capitol," Haymitch growls. "Find out who authorized you to mess up my victor's pretty little face!"

_What's wrong with her face? _I push forward, ears ringing, but I make out the Peacekeeper's words: "What business is it of hers, anyway?"

I reach Katniss' side and grasp her arm gently, protectively. I nearly do a double-take when I see her cheek. Her skin, so smooth and perfect just a few minutes ago, is inflamed, swollen and red.

She must have thrown herself in front of the whip. A rush of affection flows through me. Does she even realize how brave she is? How _good _she is?

"He's her cousin. And she's my fiancée," I tell him plainly. "So if you want to get to him, expect to go through both of us."

A woman steps forward and begins to speak, but I can't concentrate on what she's saying. I feel sick. Gale is still bound to the post, hanging by his wrists, silent and still. The only motion is the slow drip of blood from his ravaged torso to the dark, wet ground.

Katniss is trembling beside me, and I wrap my arm around her waist to steady her. I hope she doesn't think I'm being possessive, because it's not my intent – especially not now – but she doesn't even seem to know I'm there.

It feels like hours pass before the cruel man finally steps aside, flicking blood onto our coats as he runs his hand down the long leather whip. _Gale's _blood.

_It's on us. _If we hadn't started this…whatever _it _is …this never would have happened.

Katniss lunges for Gale, clawing at the knots around his wrists with shaking hands. The knots look tight – what we need right now is a knife. As if he'd read my mind, a man emerges from the thinning crowd and hands me a pocketknife. It's small, a little rusted, but it'll have to do.

I saw at the ropes as quickly as I can, but by the time I've finally cut him free, the square is nearly empty. There's only Haymitch and two men I don't recognize left to carry Gale back to the Victor's Village, where Mrs. Everdeen will save him. Or try to, at least.

Someone procured a large wooden board as a makeshift stretcher while I was cutting through Gale's bindings, and we move him carefully from the ground onto the board. Katniss moves his head gently to the side so he has room to breathe, and she brushes the hair back from his forehead, running her thumb over his brow before standing on trembling legs.

A lump forms in my throat. I don't know if it's because I'm touched by Katniss' care and attention to her friend, or because I'm jealous that there's no doubting the authenticity of her tenderness towards him. It might be both. But it's stupid and selfish of me to feel jealous right now, especially of a man who might be dying, and I push the feeling away as I heave a corner of the board over my shoulder.

The men I don't know take the back, Haymitch and I the front, and we set off for the Victor's Village as quickly as we can. Katniss trails behind us, a handful of snow pressed against the swelling on her face.

* * *

Mrs. Everdeen and Prim don't even hesitate when we arrive at their front door with Gale, bloody and beaten on a wooden board. Once we get him onto their kitchen table, I stand back against the wall, out of their way.

It's a good thing Katniss is so well paid as a victor, I think, as I watch Prim gather bottles of herbs and tinctures from a cabinet in the kitchen. I doubt they could have afforded all of these remedies on the income from Mrs. Everdeen's work alone.

Katniss stands a few feet away from me, watching intently as her family gets to work on Gale's back. Her mother tells her to put more snow on her injured cheek, but she ignores the order, unwilling to tear her eyes away from Gale's still form.

The men who helped carry Gale back – his crewmates, I've since learned – look uncomfortable, standing silently on the other side of the table. One of them nods at me. I nod back, but I look away quickly, aware how pathetic I must seem, watching her watching him.

Finally I step forward, taking Katniss' hand and gently moving her to the side.

"Here." I pull a chair away from the table and guide her into it. She sits without protest. "I'll go get you some snow for your face, okay?"

I grab a cloth napkin from the kitchen counter and go outside. The snow is coming down heavy now, thick and wet, and I blink rapidly when a snowflake lands on my eyelashes, cold water dripping into my eye.

I lean back against the door, relieved to have a moment to myself, away from the overpowering smell of rubbing alcohol and blood. I don't even know how to begin processing the turn my afternoon has taken. When I left for my family's home above the bakery an hour ago, I never thought –

Shit. My family. I'm supposed to be eating dinner with them right now.

My first thought is to run back inside and call them, but they don't have a phone. It's too dark and snowing too hard to try and fumble my way over there now. They'll just have to wonder, I guess.

I can picture the scene perfectly: My mother, angrily spooning food onto plates. "Ungrateful shit," she'll say. "He thinks he's too good for us?" My father, making a half-hearted attempt to placate her. My brothers, silent and eating as fast as they can just to get away from the dinner table.

To be honest, I'm glad it's snowing so hard. I don't think I could face them after what I saw in the square today.

I'd never tell Katniss this – she'd only find a way to feel guilty about it, even though it had nothing to do with her – but the reason I recognized the sound of the whip today was that I've heard something similar before.

The first time, I was nine. I remember it very clearly: My brother Brody and I were playing jacks on the living room floor when my mother tore up the stairs and into the room, dragging our eldest brother, Ned, behind her.

Ned was fourteen, and his pants were undone, nearly falling off his hips. She shoved him to the center of the room and he pulled them up hastily, his face beet red. "Did you have sex with her?" she demanded.

Brody and I watched in wide-eyed silence, our game of jacks forgotten. "No, ma'am," Ned said quietly.

"That's a lie," she snorted. "Don't be an idiot. You think she likes you? She's just like the rest of them. Got her hands down your pants so she can get them in your pockets."

Ned didn't say anything. She shook her head and pointed a finger at him. "Don't you move." She strode down the hallway, and I remember wondering what she was going to bring back this time. A shoe? A heavy book?

"You should run," Brody said seriously, but Ned just shook his head.

"No, she'll just make it worse," he replied. He was trying to be brave, but his shaking hands gave him away.

She came back with a belt. I remember thinking, _That's dumb, what's a belt going to do? _

She sent Brody and I to the bedroom we shared, and we sat quietly on his bed together, listening to the strange _crack-and-thud, crack-and-thud _that preceded Ned's cries. And when he changed into his pajamas that night, long after the tears had dried, I_ saw_ what a belt could do.

It wasn't until years later that I pieced it all together. My mother had found Ned out back of the bakery, with a girl from the Seam. The worst kind of girl, if you asked Mom. I still don't know if they were just kissing, or if she was giving him a handjob, or sucking his dick – it was all one and the same to our mother, anyway. Seam girls were forbidden, and that was that.

Funny enough, the memories of when it happened to me are a lot hazier.

It had something to do with a cake. A fancy, expensive cake, for one of the Peacekeepers in town. I knocked it over, or dropped it, or spilled flour on it, or _something_. I don't remember. I was eleven.

My mother dragged me upstairs by the shirt, same as she had with Ned a few years earlier, but this time no one was there. And as I waited for her to fetch her tool, I wondered, again, what she was going to bring back this time. A shoe? A heavy book? The belt didn't even cross my mind.

Years later, it's hard to describe the pain. They say you forget physical pain, your mind can't hold onto it – and that's true, for me. What I remember is the fear. The blood rushing to my head as I hung forward, bent at the waist, my fingertips skimming the floor. My father finding us up there, and yelling at her. _Yelling. _My dad never yelled, especially not at my mom. But this one time, he did, and I'd laid down face-first on my bed, glad that the sound of their screaming drowned out the sound of my sobbing.

So yes – maybe it's for the best that I'm here, snowed into the Victor's Village where my mother's venom and my father's cowardice and my brothers' indifference can't reach me. I need a little more time to work the bad feelings out of my system, to slip back on the mask I've worn around my family ever since I returned from the games.

Another large, wet snowflake lands on my nose, bringing me back to the present with a shiver. Snow for Katniss, that's what I'm out here for. I scoop up a handful of the crunchy white snow off the front step and pack it into a ball, wrapping it carefully in the napkin I'd found in the kitchen.

I knock the slush off my boots before stepping back inside, and pad back into the kitchen in my socks, afraid to track too much dirt through the house. These victor houses all have that effect on me – they're so shiny and new and perfect that I feel like I'll get in trouble if I mess them up.

Katniss hasn't moved, unsurprisingly, and I touch her shoulder so she isn't startled when she feels the cold snow on her face. "Here you go," I say, gently pressing the bundle to her cheek. Her eyes flutter shut and her face relaxes just the slightest bit. It must feel much better with the ice on it.

Eventually she opens her eyes again, and tilts up her face to look at me. It's the first time she's really looked at me since she ran away from me in the square, I think. "Thank you, Peeta," she whispers, pressing her warm palm over my hand.

My stomach swoops, and I have to clear my throat to answer. "Of course," I say.

Truth be told, I hate these moments. These moments where it hits me, so acutely, that I love her.

I _love _her.

Before the arena, I'd thought I was in love. The warmth that spread through me when I'd pass her in the hallway…the jittery jolt of excitement when I caught a glimpse of her trading squirrels for bread with my father on the weekends…if that wasn't love, what was?

Now I know that it was a crush, an infatuation. Real love is knowing someone, their flaws and their strengths, and loving them _because _of it, not despite it. Real love is standing here by her side as my hand grows numb, even while her heart is across the room, beating in tandem with the heart of the man who lies still on the table.

But the reminder that I'm in love with Katniss Everdeen isn't why I hate these moments. It's that every time, for one brief, heady moment, I believe she loves me back.

* * *

The day stretches on forever.

Gale starts to stir back into consciousness after a few hours, and Katniss grows hysterical when she realizes there's not much in the way of painkillers to give him. Haymitch and I have to forcibly carry her into a spare bedroom, and hold her down on the bed until she stops screaming.

My mind settles on a memory of the video footage we watched during the Hunger Games recap after we won, back in the summer. She screamed like this for me once, too, when the hovercraft lifted us from the arena and the doctors tore me away from her, trying to keep my heart beating. She screamed until her throat was raw, pounding her fists against the glass tube they trapped her in.

_But that was for show_, I remind myself. _This is for real._

I'm willing to spend the night, but Mrs. Everdeen insists I go home to get some rest.

"You've done so much already, Peeta," she tells me. "Thank you. I know that Katniss appreciates it." Her eyes are soft with understanding, and I can tell she pities me. Poor, lovesick Peeta.

"I'll be back in the morning," I promise, but she only nods.

I turn to Katniss. She's back in her chair, leaning forward with her elbows propped on her knees, watching Gale's bandaged back rise and fall in time with his breathing. She looks exhausted, and I have to stop myself from smoothing my hand over her hair, from bending down to kiss her cheek. I'm the last to leave, and from the corner of my eye I see Mrs. Everdeen slip out of the room, giving us privacy.

"Hey, I'm leaving," I say quietly, and Katniss looks up, angling her body toward me.

"Okay," she says. "Will you be okay getting home?"

I smile a little. "I live down the street, Katniss. Besides, it stopped snowing hours ago."

She drops her gaze to her hands. "Oh. I haven't been outside."

I shrug. "Well…goodnight."

"Peeta, wait." Her hand darts out and grabs hold of mine. A familiar thrill runs through me from the place where our palms are pressed together, but I try to ignore it. That's not what she needs from me right now.

A serious look settles on her face, and I recognize it as the way she looks when she's rehearsing her next words in her head. "I don't know what I would have done without you today," she says carefully. "Thank you…so much…for –"

"It's okay," I interrupt hoarsely, not wanting to hear anymore. "It's nothing."

She seems to understand. She keeps her steady grip on my hand, and says nothing. We just look at one another for a long moment, and I wonder if there is as much unsaid in her mind as there is in mine.

"Have a good night," I say finally, lifting my other hand to squeeze hers between both of mine before pulling away. "Get some sleep, okay?"

Unfortunately, I can't take my own advice. My house feels cold and empty after the chaos of the Everdeens', and I'm sure to have nightmares if I actually fall asleep.

All I really want is to crawl beneath the bed sheets with Katniss, wrap my arms around her, touch my lips to her long, dark hair. The way we did during the Victory Tour. But all of that seems impossible now, like it was something I dreamed up, and not reality.

So instead, I bake bread.

I know as soon as I dump the flour and yeast together that it's way too much, but maybe Gale's siblings will be at the house tomorrow. They'll need something to eat, I reason. The feel of the wet dough beneath my palms is soothing, and I let my mind go blank as I shape it into loaves.

By the time the sun rises, I've made ten loaves of bread. I grab a wicker basket from the kitchen table, dump out the plastic fruit – a ridiculous Capitol thing I didn't even know existed until I moved here – and line it with a handful of napkins. I arrange six loaves in the basket and pull back on my coat and shoes. There's a strange brown stain splattered across the front of the coat. It takes me a second too long to remember what it is.

Blood.

I tear the coat off with a startled grunt, dropping it on the floor. I can't wear it. I can't wear it ever again.

Luckily, there are three _more _winter coats hanging neatly in the coat closet by the front door, so I grab one that looks waterproof and pull it on instead. _Thank you, Portia. _I'll throw the stained one in the trash when I get home.

The snow started falling again overnight, and it continues now, though it's softer than yesterday afternoon. The neighborhood looks picturesque half-buried in snow; the houses in the Victor's Village really are beautiful, even if they're unnecessarily large and extravagant. Maybe I'll paint a scene of the street later today. It'll be a nice change from my usual subjects: my nightmares and Katniss. I can't even count how many paintings I've done of Katniss.

The front door to the Everdeens' house is unlocked, and I enter quietly, knowing they're likely still asleep. The house is silent and I flinch as the floorboards creak under my heavy tread. I can't help but smile a little as I feel a twinge of residual embarrassment. Katniss was right, I sound like a giant lumbering around, even when I'm trying to be quiet.

My smile falters as I enter the kitchen, though, and find Katniss asleep in the same chair I left her in the night before. She's dead to the world, her head resting at an uncomfortable angle on the kitchen table, her hand clenched tightly around Gale's. I wonder if he ever woke up. If he felt her take his hand in hers, and knew he had something to fight for.

I set my bread basket down on the kitchen island, and turn back to look at Katniss and Gale, leaning against the edge of the counter. She can't have been asleep for long.

As much as it hurts to see them like this, linked by their hands, by their pain, I don't have the heart to wake her up. This is the most peaceful I've seen her look since the last morning we woke up together on the train, and I want to savor it now, because I may never see it again.

Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes pass. The sunlight starts to shine a little brighter through the windows, bouncing off the fresh snow, and I know the others will be rousing soon. I don't want them to find me sitting here alone – I realize it's a little weird – so I step over to Katniss and grasp her shoulder gently. "Katniss. Hey. Time to wake up."

Her eyes drift open after a few moments, and I watch as they flick from confusion to relief to discomfort as the pain of the wound on her cheek returns to her. I smile at her sadly. "Go on up to bed, Katniss," I tell her, running my hand down her arm to give her a comforting squeeze. "I'll look after him now."

She sits up a little straighter and I let my hand fall away. "Peeta," she says seriously. "About what I said yesterday…about running…"

I stop her. "I know." I know we won't be running away into the forest together. I know that she chose Gale. But as long as I don't have to hear her say it, I can keep pretending that it's fine, that it doesn't affect me as deeply as she thinks. "There's nothing to explain."

"Peeta –"

"Just go to bed, okay?"

It's not too hard to convince her; she's clearly exhausted, and the eye that was struck by the whip is still swollen almost entirely shut. I help guide her over to the staircase, but she insists on climbing to the second floor alone. I hover at the foot of the stairs until she reaches the top, just in case.

Once she's disappeared into her bedroom, I settle into her empty seat by the kitchen table. It could be just my imagination, but I think Gale's face has creased into the slightest frown since she left.

This is probably the only time I've ever been alone with Gale, and I'm glad that he's unconscious. I don't know what we'd talk about. The weather? What it feels like to be whipped? I wouldn't have much to add to that conversation. My mother's belt on my back was nothing like what he's been through.

I'm fairly certain that Gale hates me, anyway. Why wouldn't he? From his perspective, I'm the intruder. I'm the one who forced my way into Katniss' life, declared my love for her and then made her play along with it. After years of hunting with her, joking with her, loving her, he had to watch everything he ever wanted with her play out on the screen, with me as the co-star.

It would be so easy to hate him, too. I think I did, at one point, in the days after I learned that Katniss' feelings were all an act, when all I could do was wallow in self-pity and humiliation. But Gale doesn't deserve my hate. All he ever did was love the same girl that I did. He's willing to die to protect Katniss, just like I am. I can't fault him for that.

I sit, watching him breathe, for at least an hour, until Katniss' family begins to stir. Prim comes downstairs first, skidding to a stop at the bottom of the stairs when she sees me.

"Hi, Prim," I whisper, waving at her.

"Hi," she whispers back, cheeks flushed. She pulls her fluffy blue robe around her torso a little tighter, concealing her bright pink pajamas. She didn't realize I'd be down here. I hide a smile and look away as she moves further into the kitchen.

"Ooh, this smells wonderful," she murmurs, dipping her head near the basket full of bread and breathing in deeply. "Did you make these?"

"Yup. Go ahead, it's all yours," I tell her. She pulls out a loaf eagerly and sets it on the counter, rummaging through the drawers for a knife. I wonder if she's had as hard a time as I have adjusting to a new house. I still open the wrong kitchen cabinets when I'm looking for plates and glasses half the time.

"How is he doing?" she asks quietly, pulling a butter dish and marmalade from the refrigerator.

I look Gale over, and shrug. "Good, I think. He's breathing normally. You'd know better than I would, though, Ms. Doctor."

Prim only smiles as she spreads the butter on her bread. She was remarkably calm amongst all the panic yesterday, especially for a thirteen-year-old. Katniss wasn't exaggerating when she called her sister a born healer.

Mrs. Everdeen joins us a few minutes later, and thanks me for the bread. I know that Katniss has serious issues with her mother – and they're well-deserved, from the few details Katniss has confided to me – but she's only been kind to me. She makes tea, and I don't correct her when she stirs a little spoonful of sugar into my cup.

It's bittersweet, sitting here with Katniss' family, eating breakfast as though it's something we do every day. Because it could have been, if things were different. They could have been my family too, one day.

We talk quietly, munching on bread and marmalade and tea, until a choked cry sounds out from over our heads. I know the sound – it's Katniss, fighting back a nightmare.

I want to run upstairs and hold her. I want to climb into the bed beside her, stroke her hair, run my fingers over her cheek until she calms. I want to be the one whose face she sees first when she opens her eyes, gasping for breath.

But that's not my place anymore, if it ever was at all.

I feel Prim and Mrs. Everdeen's eyes on me as I stand, shoving my hands in my pockets awkwardly. "So, it's coming down pretty hard out there," I begin, nodding towards the window. Our view of the street is almost entirely obscured by the snow, which is falling thick and heavy now. "I think I'd better go check on Haymitch and then get back home. I don't want to leave the house empty during a storm."

It's bullshit, and they know it. Haymitch will happily spend today doing one of two things: sleeping off a hangover, or working his way up to the next one. And my house – that's an even worse lie. There's nothing of value to me in there, except maybe a few of my paintings. On the off chance that a blizzard causes any damage, I could just move into the empty one next door.

The truth is, I can't stay here and watch Katniss with Gale. Maybe that makes me weak, or selfish, or both. So be it. It's how I feel, and I'm tired of holding back my feelings. Keeping them hidden doesn't mean they no longer exist.

The women walk me to the front door. "Are you sure you don't want to stay?" Prim asks. "I think Katniss would like it if you were here."

"No, I think Katniss will be fine," I say, giving her a small smile. "She's got you."

"Get home safe," Mrs. Everdeen says as I make my way carefully down the front steps.

With one last wave over my shoulder, I start for home. The snow shows no signs of letting up; this is probably going to be a bad one, the kind of blizzard we only see every four or five years.

So maybe I'll have a few days to myself, in my empty, too-big victor house. Time to paint, to bake, to think. And maybe that's a good thing – because things are changing. I can feel it, even through the cold bite of the winter wind.

Yes, things are changing. And when the snow thaws and I emerge from my hideaway, I'll be ready to face it.

I'll have to.

* * *

**This story was written as a gift for kismet4891 in the Everlark Secret Santa exchange on AO3. If you haven't checked out the exchange yet, DO IT! There are 30+ amazing stories in there by new and old authors alike, and they're uniformly AWESOME. **

**Big thanks to starkist for beta reading this fic for me! :) **


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